Juices are digested much more quickly than whole fruits.
There is a tendency these days to overthink what goes in our mouths and analyse nutrition in terms of each food component – like carbohydrates or fats. This article does not set out to confuse your dietary considerations more than they already are, but simply to make the point that food structure really does matter. Our digestion system has evolved to deconstruct complex animal and plant tissues, and deliver the goods to our bloodstream at a suitably regulated rate that does not overtax organs such as the liver. The stomach, with its strong acids and muscular motion, breaks down most of our food, which the small intestine is then able to absorb and transfer to the blood as smaller molecules. It is important that enough is left over to feed our co-dependent bacteria – billions of them – resident in the large intestine. Fibre is not just about helping along a regular throughput of waste.
I was privileged enough to be leading a team of fantastic researchers, who made an important contribution to the country, so it s quite humbling to have been recognised with this honour, he said.
Hendy said his team of researchers were under time pressure earlier this year to produce models to advise the government and he is pleased with the outcome. In March everything was really uncertain and we had to work really rapidly and a lot of long days to get the models ready. We knew the government would need it to be able to start thinking about relaxing alert levels once elimination has been achieved. that was a special achievement, he said.